Hamiet Bluiett (1940–2018)

The baritone saxophonist and clarinetist and composer Hamiet Bluiett has died at the age of seventy-eight. The New York Times has an obituary. NPR has a sampler of his music.

I’ve listened to Bluiett on LPs and CDs for many years. And I was fortunate to hear him, just once, in person, in 2008, playing with Kahil El’Zabar’s Ritual Trio. I am glad that I had the chance to tell him how much his music meant to me. Still does.

*

8:01 p.m.: Still on YouTube: a 1989 performance by the World Saxophone Quartet (Julius Hemphill, David Murray, Oliver Lake, Bluiett) from Night Music, hosted by David Sanborn (who once studied with Hemphill). Also still there, a later WSQ lineup (James Carter, Greg Osby, Oliver Lake, Bluiett) blowing down a gymnasium full of schoolkids in Lovejoy, Illinois: 1, 2, 3, 4.

How to improve writing (no. 77)

A Washington Post headline, now online:

Kavanaugh arrives wounded, as is the Supreme Court’s image

The verb that should follow is is does, not is: Kavanaugh arrives, as does, &c. But the Supreme Court isn’t arriving. A sentence that might make the problem clearer: The guitarist Otis Rush played left-handed, as was Albert King.

If the Post isn’t revising, I am. Possible improvements:

Kavanaugh and the Supreme Court, both now wounded

A wounded justice joins a wounded Supreme Court

A wounded justice — and a wounded Court

I think it goes without saying that the wounds are metaphorical: there’s no need to make reference to the Supreme Court’s “image.” Another possible revision — oh, forget it, there’s no way to make this news better.

11:00 p.m.: The Post headline has changed: “Bitter partisan battle wounded Kavanaugh and the Supreme Court he’s joined.”

Related reading
All OCA “How to improve writing” posts (Pinboard)

[This post is no. 77 in a series, dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]

“The repeated refrains of nature”

I came across this passage by chance. From Rachel Carson’s The Sense of Wonder (1965):

Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Whatever the vexations or concerns of their personal lives, their thoughts can find paths that lead to inner contentment and to renewed excitement in living. Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for the spring. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.

“Never alone or weary of life”: someone with, say, severe depression might want to disagree. But nature as a source of renewal? I’m with Carson. Making a garden or taking the same walk every day are two ways to develop a greater awareness of “the repeated refrains of nature.”

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Brad Wilber, is a breeze — a welcome breeze, given that the temperature today is supposed to get to 86°.

Three clues I especially liked: 64-Across, three letters, “Verb with preposition and noun homophones.” 66-Across, seven letters, “System conveying blog updates.” And 11-Down, seven letters: “What was once called a ‘fountain paintbrush.’” Words. Blogs. Supplies. Represent.

No spoilers; the answers and some additional commentary are in the comments.

What Susan Collins didn’t talk about

The White House’s limits on the FBI investigation, the many potential witnesses never interviewed (there’s no possibility of corroboration without a genuine investigation), Deborah Ramirez’s allegation (for which there are contemporaneous witnesses), Brett Kavanaugh’s defensiveness and evasiveness in responding to senators’ questions, his blatant dishonesty under oath, the many doubts about his ability to be an impartial and even-tempered justice. See, for instance, American Bar Association misgivings, a letter signed by 2,400+ law professors, and former justice John Paul Stevens’s remarks.

I am trying to imagine a job candidate — for any job, anywhere — conducting herself or himself as Kavanaugh did in last Thursday’s hearing and then being hired. I can’t. Shame on Susan Collins, Jeff Flake, Joe Manchin, and the rest. Now it’s really the Twilight Zone.

Geoff Emerick (1945-2018)

The recording engineer Geoff Emerick, best known for his work with the Beatles, has died at the age of seventy-two. The New York Times has an obituary.

Here’s Emerick looking back on the 1963 Beatles Christmas Show:

When I got home that night I reflected on the fact that only a year and a half previously I had still been in school, desperate to get into the recording business. Now here I was, on a first-name basis with the four musicians who had appeared on that stage; I’d been a guest of their manager, sitting in a choice seat because I had actually played a small role in the making of their records. It was quite a sobering moment; so much had happened in that year and a half. As 1963 slipped into 1964, I pinched myself at my good fortune.

How much better can this possibly get? I asked myself.

Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey, Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles (New York: Penguin, 2006).

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?]