Scene from an Eye-talian restaurant

The waitstaff had been trained into robotic uniformity:

“What would you like, ma’am?”

“. . .”

“Yes, ma’am. And what would you like, sir?”

“. . .”

“Yes, sir. And what would you like, ma’am?”

And so on. The crack in the facade appeared when someone asked about salad dressing.

“We have Eye-talian, French,” &c.

The owners had thought of almost everything.

“Eye-talian” is a common midwestern pronunciation. Maybe that’s how the owners pronounce it too.

Balzac: money

Honoré de Balzac, Cousin Bette, trans. Kathleen Raine (New York: Modern Library, 2002).

Related reading
All OCA Balzac posts (Pinboard)

“Plaid”

Fun: “Plaid,” an episode of Articles of Interest, a podcast series within in the podcast series 99% Invisible.

I like plaid. (It really is warmer.) And I was happy to learn from this podcast that tartan generators a-plenty may be found online. I used Tartan Designer to make an official Orange Crate Art tartan (Orange Crate tArtan?). If American Express and New Jersey can have their own tartans, so can my blog:


Related posts
Is plaid really warmer? : Phil Silvers in plaid : Proust and plaid : Winter weather wisdom (“Cover most of your body in plaid”)

John Ashbery’s collages

On view now in New York.

Related reading
All OCA Ashbery posts (Pinboard)

[The “man in a suit” in the collage Cushing’s Island — isn’t that Jerry Lewis?]

Photographs by Joanna Key

Photographs by my friend Joanna Key, appearing in Midwestern Gothic: an abandoned bus, doors, a goat, pumpkin heads, a shark, a water tower, the whole world in his hand.

Down a garden path

A garden-path sentence in the form of a New York Daily News headline: “Father of off-duty cop busted for hiring hooker who stole his car and gun explodes after hearing the details.”

[The cop was busted, not the father. The father exploded, not the gun.]

Numbers

Four senators:

Susan Collins (R-ME)
Washington, D.C.: 202-224-2523
Augusta: 207-622-8414
Bangor: 207-945-0417
Biddeford: 207-283-1101
Caribou: 207-493-7873
Lewiston: 207-784-6969
Portland: 207-780-3575

Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
Washington, D.C. 202-224-4521
Phoenix: 602-840-1891
Tucson: 520-575-8633

Joe Manchin (D-WV)
Washington, D.C.: 202-224-3954
Charleston: 304-342-5855
Eastern Panhandle: 304-264-4626
Fairmont: 304-368-0567

Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
Washington, D.C.: 202-224-6665
Anchorage: 907-271-3735
Fairbanks: 907-456-0233
Juneau: 907-586-7277
Kenai: 907-283-5808
Ketchikan: 907-225-6880
Mat-Su Valley: 907-376-7665

Every time I make these calls, I feel that it’s useless. But still, I call. And if hundreds of thousands — or millions? — of people call? That might be far from useless.

Pro tip: calling a local office is a good way to avoid the D.C. “mailbox full” response. When I called one of Senator Manchin’s local offices, I startled upon realizing that I had reached a person, not another answering machine. I identified myself as an Illinois voter, as I always do: I’d never try to pass for a constituent. And I even took an extra few seconds to praise the West Virginia Welcome Center on Interstate 64 West. Why not?

[Telephone numbers from Contacting Congress.]

Olivia Jaimes!

An eyewitness report from Rocko Jerome: I Have Seen Olivia Jaimes, the Cartoonist Behind the New Nancy.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

The Gmail redesign

Here are some good suggestions for modifying Gmail’s ugly new interface when the option to return to “Classic Gmail” is no longer available. The suggestion to turn off hovering is especially helpful.

Another suggestion, which I found in a comment on this (not especially helpful) piece: clicking on the stacked lines in the upper left corner collapses the main menu (the left column) and makes for a more attractive layout.

Some Gmail accounts still have the “Go back to Classic Gmail“ option available from the Settings menu. But the option is being phased out. There’ll be no going back.

Here’s a reason to look at the Spam folder

From an e-mail purporting to offer English instruction from a native speaker: “A correct pronunciation in English is midway been to Increase Your Success !!!”

And then, more soberly: “I await your contact to turn in their English.”

See also Pedro Carolino’s English As She Is Spoke.